Mary Elliott Flanery (April 27, 1867 – July 19, 1933) was an American Progressive Era social reformer, suffragist, politician, and journalist who is best remembered as the first woman elected to the Kentucky General Assembly and first woman elected to a state legislature south of the Mason–Dixon line.

The Flanery family moved to Pikeville, Kentucky, in 1896 for Harvey to work for Northern Coal and Coke as an attorney.

[1] She wrote a column called "Impressions of Kentucky's Legislature," and she advocated for legislation as a means for social reform.

Flanery personally supported the publication of books by female African-American poet Effie Waller Smith, who lived and worked in Pike County, Kentucky.

She urged her colleagues to change legislation about marriage and divorce, and to implement the federal Shepard-Towner Maternity Act, a progressive era program that provided medical care to pregnant women and their children.